Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of regulations protecting child influencers and child content producers from exploitation and harm; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of strengthening legal protections in this area.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
During the passage of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, the government committed to review The Children (Performance and Activities) (England) Regulations 2014 and will do so in the future. These regulations currently cover public performances and paid sporting and modelling. The review will include careful consideration of which activities should fall in scope and how best to ensure that children can continue to access positive opportunities, while also safeguarding their safety, wellbeing and best interests.
Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support universities.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Government recognises the vital role that universities play in delivering opportunity, supporting skills, driving innovation and contributing to economic growth across the country.
While higher education providers are responsible for managing their own finances, the Government remains committed to creating a secure future for the sector so it can continue to deliver for students, taxpayers, workers and the economy.
We increased tuition fee caps in line with inflation in academic year 2025/26. We are also increasing tuition fee caps in line with forecast inflation in 2026/27 and 2027/28 and will legislate, when parliamentary time allows, to increase tuition fee caps for future academic years. Over the next five years, these uplifts could generate around £6 billion of additional income for the sector.
The Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper also sets out the Government’s commitment to placing higher education on a more sustainable footing, supporting providers to drive efficiency, strengthen financial resilience and adopt more effective operating models.
We continue to work closely with the Office for Students, the independent regulator of higher education providers in England, to understand the sector’s changing financial landscape and ensure that the interests of students and taxpayers are protected.
More broadly, the White Paper sets out how we will support the sector to become more specialised and efficient, and better aligned with the needs of the economy.
Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce educational inequalities in (a) the South East and (b) nationally.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
All children and young people should have every opportunity to succeed, no matter where they are from. However, we know educational inequalities exist across the country. This is not acceptable in the South East or nationally.
The department is tackling inequalities in the system head-on through our plan for change. From September we will be rolling out 30 hours of funded childcare for working parents, saving eligible parents using their full entitlement an average of £7,500 a year. We are also rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school, expanding free school meals to all children on Universal Credit and have delivered the largest ever uplift to early years pupil premium.
We are recruiting an additional 6,500 expert teachers in our schools and colleges and are making good progress, with over 2,000 more teachers in our secondary and special schools.
The department will spend close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education to begin the hard work needed.
We will fund Best Start Family Hubs in every local authority to ensure that children and families who need support the most, especially those from low-income backgrounds or with additional vulnerabilities, can access it. These hubs will be open to all families but will be located in disadvantaged communities where support is most needed, ensuring services are both inclusive and targeted.
Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to make SEND training mandatory for (a) Initial Teacher Training and (b) continual learning for qualified teachers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) is a mandatory part of initial teacher training and training for early career teachers, creating a strong foundation for those joining the profession. The new initial teacher training and early career framework comes into effect from September 2025 and sets out the minimum entitlement for teacher training and must cover adaptive teaching and SEND. The department tested this approach with SEND educational experts with consensus that the approach of ‘quality-first teaching’ would be the best way to improve outcomes for all children.
We also recognise that continuous improvement is essential and have recently committed to a full review of the early career teacher entitlement in 2027 to ensure it continues to provide the best possible basis for initial teacher training and early career teacher support.
To further support teachers, in autumn 2024 the department began delivery of the national professional qualification for special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs). This is now the mandatory qualification for SENCOs. Participants will develop the essential knowledge and skills needed to set the strategic direction of SEND policy in a school and the conditions in which pupils with SEND can thrive.
Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the report by The Sutton Trust entitled The Opportunity Index, published in May 2025.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Sutton Trust’s valuable report highlights that too many children face barriers to success because of who they are or where they come from. This is why, through the Opportunity Mission, we will break the link between young people’s backgrounds and their future success, by tackling child poverty, ensuring all children have safe and loving homes, get the best start in life, achieve and thrive in school and develop skills to succeed in life.
We agree with the report that these challenges are multi-faceted and require a complex package of measures. That is why we have started to make progress by expanding free school meals to all children on Universal Credit, have delivered the largest ever uplift to early years pupil premium, are driving school improvement through our regional improvement for standards and excellence teams, and launched foundation apprenticeships as part of a Youth Guarantee so that all 18 to 21 year-olds in England have access to education, training or help to find a job or an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Chris Ward (Labour - Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of revising the eligibility rules for free school transport.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The department’s home to school travel policy aims to make sure that no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. Local authorities must arrange free home to school travel for children of compulsory school age, 5 to 16, who attend their nearest school and would not be able to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem, or because the nature of the route means it would be unsafe for them to do so. There are extended rights to free travel for children from low-income families.
I am keen to understand how well home to school transport supports children to access educational opportunity and will be working with departmental officials on this.